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Welcome to the Joy of Building, where we explore the journey of creating not just products and companies, but the intentional lives our souls have always desired. As a personal coach, I guide individuals at crossroads or feeling stuck to overcome their limiting beliefs and take bold steps towards their lifelong passions. Join us as we dive into inspiring stories, transformative strategies, and practical advice to help you unlock your true potential and build a life filled with purpose and joy. Tune in, transform, and take the leap!
Oh, hello. Hello, KP. Thank you so much for joining. I can't, I can't express how excited I am to have you here on the call today.
Thank you. It means a lot. You know, that You invited me especially because I feel like I have a very, very tiny teeny role in this podcast, the whole series, the whole show coming to life because you were part of the podcast program, and you're one of my favorite students. You are one of my favorite action takers, and you really took what we were talking about in the fellowship in the cohort to action. And here I am in a full circle moment as a guest
to you. So stoked. Yes. Well, I was I would add on to that and said, it is not just a teeny tiny. And later we're gonna talk a little bit about belief capital, but I would say you you are one of the reasons why this, podcast here, listeners, why you get to hear my voice is because you have contributed one of the, the whispers that made me realize like, this is something I could lean into and something I'm gonna keep exploring.
So I so appreciate having you here is, like you said, it's a full circle and just feels great.
That's awesome. I'm stoked. I'm excited. It's also one of one of those things where I felt right from my right from the early days when I got to know you, Andrew, I really felt there was a sense of, You know, mutual appreciation and sense of connection. And it's hard to place why.
Maybe because I was also into no code. You were also into no code a few years ago. Yeah. But I don't I don't believe that it's just the tangible reasons. You know?
There is some some intangible gravitational pull that I feel like, People who operate from deeper parts of their core have towards each other. So it's kinda like in in basketball terms to say, game recognize this game. You know, I felt the same vice versa, hopefully, where I can recognize a long time ago. And and it's been so blissful and satisfying and and and and meaningful to me that we got to keep bumping into each other the last 6 months a lot more. And I really consider you as a friend now.
And and I remember that call we had 2 weeks ago where I where I did, like, a gut check of my no idea on a rebrand or whatever with you, and you were such a great sounding partner. So I appreciate all of those interactions, you know, leading up to this. So thank you for all that you bring to everybody, including me.
Yeah. I appreciate that. KP. Well, I want to kick things off with something that I found kind of in the archives, I've seen, which is a Tumblr blog called be the purple cow. Oh my God.
Now my first question for you is, well, 1, why did you start it? And, like, what does it mean to you back then? And especially now looking back, what does it mean to you now?
Wow. Wow. I haven't I don't think like I have about, what, 50,000 people who follow me now, I don't think, like, more than 2 people know about this. So this is crazy that you went that far. So it's probably 2011 and 12 yeah.
That era is when, I took interest in blogging, writing. A lot of that was inspired by Seth Godin And his book, the iconic book called Purple Cow. And I read that book when I was leaving India in 20, 2011, just before August. And I moved here from my master's in in August 2011. And then for those one half, 2 years, I was doing a lot of soul searching.
And although officially, formally, I was enrolled in the master's program for electrical engineering, I really felt that that was not my calling. Like, you know, I didn't mean to just be inside a lab group or research writing, you know, thesis papers. Academics was not my academia was not my future. It was very clear. So I was soul searching, and part of it was exploring new things.
And, I thought, okay, what if I took up writing? You know, like, just, expressing my thoughts and ideas. And I gave myself a challenge to write every single day. Had I learned that Seth Godin on his blog posts every day at 5 AM, and he did this for, like, 15 years or something at the time. So I thought that was, like, so dope, so cool.
And I would try I was trying to mimic that, do a version of that. And at the time the hottest platform newsletter platform or writing blogging platform was Tumblr. And so I enrolled. I mean, I signed up and created an account. But in retrospect, I should have called it something more creative than be the purple cow, but I was, like, such a big stan of Seth.
Shout out Seth if he's if he ever gets a chance to listen to this. I wrote 50 days in a row and I emailed Seth Godin that there's also there's a lot of me today, sort of the the blocks sort of the bricks of me today have taken shape you did in those days. You can see a lot of that. This shoot my shot energy, This, like, cold email, the cold reach out, the fearlessness energy, and all of that, you know, has been there since 2011. So I emailed Seth, and I think 1 or 2 times I emailed him, didn't respond.
So finally, when I hit a 100 blog posts in a row, I emailed him again I said, Seth, you know, sorry to interrupt you, but I'm such a fan, and look at all this work I created. And it was not an copy of any of his work. It was basically, like, something about action taking, something about change, like, my experiences, my stories, but I knew that he would resonate. So I think he read 2 or 3 posts, and he actually replied saying, this is awesome, great work or some something like that. And I kept in touch with him through that email exchange.
And I remember the the one memory I have from those days is at some point, I hit 300 for 400 in a row. Eventually, it went to 700. But at some point, 700 or maybe 600. I forgot. But, like, at some point, it was such a big number handle Seth replied to me something on the lines of you're a legend.
And it was such a big moment for me at that point that I took a screenshot, I framed it, you know, took a printout of that email. It was so cool. That that blog didn't go anywhere. Of course, one of my biggest, Retrospectively, I look back. One of my biggest mistakes was I didn't really build in public.
Mhmm. So it wasn't built with a community. It wasn't like putting my yoga to the ground and asking them what should I write more about, what resonated. I was there's no talking to the users as YC would say. I was just kinda expressing myself and writing to the user of 1, you know, audience of 1.
And I think eventually I had maybe, like, 15 to 200 greeters. But
Mhmm.
After 3, 4 years, I gave up. But it give me a lot of practice in the form of short, cause it was mostly 2 paragraphs, 3 paragraphs. So it give me a lot of practice in writing, which is still paying off dividends.
Yeah, definitely. Wow. I also love that little additional tidbit that you emailed them after, like you said first 10 and then obviously from like a100.
Yeah.
Well, something I'm really curious about which well, for me, you always talk a lot about reps. Right? And, When I first discovered that blog, it was so eyeopening for me because it, it humbled me because you, a lot of time you talk about reps and there's reps that you can see. For example, I think as of as of this morning, you have like 38,200 and 78 tweets. Right.
You talk about how often you do reps newsletter. But even before way back then you were already putting these reps write to, to, to practice, to get some stuff out.
Well, 1,
you mentioned it was largely because you wanted to soul search. Right? You wanted to find something that means out of your let's say what the school could teach you. But during those early moments, what about writing consistently writing daily? Contributed to this vision of 1, 1, you knew you wanted to find something and 2, I know you're already very motivated to explore founder or being entrepreneur.
Why did those things kind of go hand in hand for you during that time?
I think, it was mostly trying to find my voice, you know, in in this noisy world. And trying to, like, be more of a passive more of an active, sort of contributor. More of the more of the person who who's in the front seat of his own destiny and not in the back seat, you know and I think there's that was the fight that I was having that would I let my destiny be just circumstance being the driver, driving me whatever circumstance takes me, or would I be the kind of person who jumps in the front seat Even when there's a circumstance trying to drive for you, for because everyone has a circumstance, you know, at at at driving trying to, like, con take control of the steering wheel. And so this this constant fight that I had back then about, am I the kind of person, who'd be in charge of my life, you know. And so Mhmm.
I needed those reps. I needed to push myself every day. I needed to do something outside my comfort zone and prove to myself that I am the kind of person Who's the CEO of my life, as they say. Right? Mhmm.
I've said this a couple times. Even before becoming the CEO of the fellowship or CEO of lead a bird of what are these all these companies I started. I first had to become the CEO of my life, you know? And so for that to happen, I needed to do Things like this, which now decades later, looking back, don't matter for the audience that I serve and people that I who are my customers. But It met to me, they were building blocks of my confidence, and my conviction about, you know, what kind of person that I I wanna be.
Right? Handle it. Yeah. I I definitely came to America with a dream to be a founder. I think that was very apparent to me.
Even on the plane, I was thinking on that long ass plane from India to to Nashville. I was still thinking, like, I was, like I remember thinking very intently about how do I become a great founder? How do I become a great tech entrepreneur? And But the challenge was, like, I don't even know what it meant to be one of these. None of not nobody in my family, you know, first of all, is an entrepreneur.
2nd of all, a tech entrepreneur. Right? Because tech is such a modern thing and, startups and tech were not a thing, you know, where I grew up. Know, I grew up in a small village, you know, and being a banker in the village was sort of the greatest achievement you could have had, you know so I had to level up. I had to, like, really raise the ceiling of my ambition every 2 years.
And that I did a lot of that in my teens and, you know, late teens and then early twenties. And I feel like even now, I'm constantly doing that. The work of trying to raise the ceiling of your ambition every every 2, 3 years, because so much of this is, Overcoming your own limiting beliefs. Right? I've seen great entrepreneurs today, and the difference between them And as a fledgling entrepreneur who's filled with self doubt is not so much the technical skills or the tactical skills because they're learnable.
The Internet's free. Everybody can learn pretty much anything, no code, whatever, wanna learn. But the biggest barrier in the first, few levels of this is just self doubt hand limiting beliefs and thinking that you're, you know, who are you to go live the dream that you want to live is the voice that I feel like a lot of us initially have to overcome. And eventually, it becomes why not me, which is where I am right now. So when I see someone succeeding, I'm like, why not me?
Right? I'm not in a comparison way, but, like, if I wanna really live up to the highest potential, Highest level of my self actualization then. I have to keep asking myself, why not me? Why can't I do this? You know, how hard can it be?
And it's such a dumb naive question, but Without that kind of chot spa, you can't leap into action and take a shot. Otherwise, you're you're living in your head too much. But yeah. So though, Yeah. I think the the intention to be a founder was there, and the soul searching and the writing were to me I mean, the writing especially was like a challenge to see if I can produce something.
And it was actually very, very hard as I think back now to come out of the identity that I was only good for academics.
Mhmm. Because my
whole identity until 21 was that I was good at math and science, and I was an engineer in bachelor's in India and then master's in robotics. It's like, who would have thought that today I would be the building public guy. Right? It's Like, the farthest thing ever. Right?
Yeah. So I kinda built my own bridge from that identity to this identity. And now nobody even bats an eye that if I go up and say, hey. You know, I am the, like, building public guy or I can do marketing. I can do sales.
In fact, the fellowship is built on the premise that I know I know something about sales and marketing, but it wasn't like this, you know, initially. So I think a lot of writing helped, a lot of copywriting. I also did a special copywriting class when I was at Vanderbilt, you know, my master's. I was the only non engineer I was the only engineer In the class, which was filled with art school students and English majors. Because copywriting typically is Yeah.
You don't see a lot of engineers do that. Right? So, it's always been an off I've I I always had a very squiggly path Andrew. You know? That's something that I I'm always fascinated at.
Like, you know, my path has always been so squiggly and nonlinear and I just accepted it now.
Yeah. One thing that fascinates me is like where because you talk a lot about this, this deep belief that you could be more, you can do more. You can give more and sometimes you talk about, you can like love more, write both to utters and yourself. Initially, and you, you used the word ambition, right? Where, where did that come from?
Right. You were, you were a kid growing up with a Bumbar room. And you were, I'm a read those stories about how you know, you didn't even have running water growing up, right? Yeah. How were you even able to kind of envision yourself?
Into the future around a version of yourself that could be better, especially coming from a place that could be also especially doing it in a way in a patient way that you weren't like, I need it now. I need to make $5,000,000 by next year. Right? Which I've seen some individuals have. Right?
How do you how do those 2 things come together to shape who you are today?
I don't know. I think, my best guess of the answer is perhaps this incremental, you know, leveling up, like I said. Right? At every turn, what can I do to level up and rise up, you know, to the next step in the ladder, to the next step in the ladder? And I view I view I view like this, You know, our journey in you know, once you have sort of certain sense of awareness and consciousness, I think from there to the day you die.
I think the journey to me is kinda like climbing a pyramid or a mountain. And the mountain is self actualization. Right? Like, you've been given this life, and you've been given a a set of skills. You know, like, some people are sharper with certain things.
Some people are, you know, smarter about other things. And but the rest you can teach yourself, you know? And you have been given, arguably the most potent, device in the universe call the human mind, you know. Like, just brilliant. Like, you think about how powerful our mind is, you know.
People think, like, The Internet's powerful and people think AI is powerful. Think about a human mind. Right? Like, I'm watching that come to life with my son who's 2a half years old. I'm, like, blown away by the level of intellect, The quickness, the way that peep you know, our human beings, we learn and grasp things.
I'm like, wow. You know, the other day I asked it was a dumb off topic, but, like, the other day I asked him, do you remember what we had? Do you remember the colors of the cookies we had at the music class? He and I go to this music class, you know, which is I hold he's 2a half years old. He told me that he had daddy had, brown cookie and he had orange cookie.
This is from a week ago. I don't remember that. And two and a half years ago, two and a half years, like, a human mind can recollect memories like that distinctly, like, photographically. Blows my mind. You know?
I don't think we appreciate. So I think the the at every turn of my sort of join in my career. I only did what was slightly out of my comfort zone. I never did anything that was sensational, you know, ever. Like, I couldn't have possibly even imagined.
Like you said earlier, the biggest deal For me was, can I make money at all? And I was I think I remember when we moved from Omuru to Hyderabad, the city and The fact the family was in a financially tough situation. I was, like, 12, 13 years old. Somebody told me that you could actually tutor. I mean, I was, like, I think, 11th 11th grade, and one of my friends told me that you could actually tutor can't get paid, which, by the way, I didn't know.
I didn't know you could get paid through tutoring, you know, especially if you're not a professor because I was a kid, like, 11th grade. And he introduced me to his neighbor who was a rich doctor, and he lives in the rich ZIP code, and I lived in the poor ZIP code. And he was sort of my gateway to the rich ZIP code where he said, KP, why don't you go? Because I know you're looking for some money could help the family. I was told by the way, I'm, like, 11th grade, which is 14 years old, you know?
14 no. 16 years old or something. And he was saying, Why don't you go pitch to the doctor couple that you would tutor their daughter and you would teach them math or whatever, and then you'll get paid. And so I remember that was my 1st ever cold pitch. And I went and I I pitched my academical, you know, my background because I was a very strong come back to it, and I told her I remember my favorite word.
I don't know. Some version I said, I know how to get the 9 to 9 because she wants a 9 to 9 or something for her daughter. Yeah. And I said, but I'm gonna give you even a better deal. I will make her fall in love with Matt.
That's the better deal. Sold. She said that's what I want. Right? Like, think about it.
Really, parent wants that for the kid, not the damn, like, score. Right? Yeah. So she realized that I was at a different level than just any other person who is just transactional. You know?
And so I told her my own story about how, like, I hated math, and then I fell in love, and then I learned. You know? So, that was my actual first call. So I made I remember I made, 5,000 rupees, and that blew my mind because my it was Half the money that my dad was making in a in a month that I made through this one, thing, 5,000 rupees is, like, in per in perspective is, you know, $35 or something. And, I was I thought that was the you know?
So to your question, The the the the perspective was never how could I become a millionaire at 33 or 34. The perspective was how can I get the next win? You know? And for me, the next win was 0 to $35 a month. And then when I got there, then I got how do I go to the $50 a month?
You know? I remember, again, in 20, I I so I also would recognize, I was not in a hurry, But I was moving quickly. Mhmm. You know? I would never settle in a stagnant place of either, financial stagnant stagnation or personal growth stagnation.
If I felt like I was not leveling up enough, I would challenge myself with something bigger. You know? So in when I got the when I graduated from college in India, My first job was paying me 20,000 rupees, which is, 225 or something. You know? $225 a month.
And I spent 8 months there, and I quickly realized that is not my future. Right? So I realized I asked myself, what it what is my next leveling up move. And that happened to be coming to America and then, you know, challenging myself to see if I would do a master's. So, you know but at any point, if you asked me, like, KP, would you be a billionaire one day, or would you you know, I I don't think I had these mega grand answers.
Even now, I feel I have a very strong, deep conviction that I will be a billionaire, Andrew, it sounds so dumb to say that out loud because I know how the game is played and the and I don't even get any I'm not even, like, in a rush for it because the real fun is in the anticipation, you know? The real fun is not in the actual achievement. The real fun is in the lead up to that. So I 100% know I will become 1. As long as I live, I will try to get 1 at some point, and I it'll happen.
I can't. I'm maybe 52 or 85. I don't care. But I all I wanna do is make sure that I have the most fun and I do the most impact to others as I'm doing that. Well,
one thing that, well, the first thing that I was thinking about that made me smile was, Well, just hearing about your tutoring experience because, I've known you now that you became such a good teacher. You have the, you already have the charisma. You have the joyfulness, but you also have other. Core qualities like the patients, the empathy to be a good teacher. And I just love hearing that there were some early like roots to that, right?
Yeah. Love hearing.
It's so funny, right? Like it's so funny. I didn't, I I also, the other thing too is that I never thought, like, if you ask me because I started so many companies before this. I never thought this would be the main thing that would bring me a lot of joy and a lot of growth now, right, as we're growing this. And, like, man, like, if I don't know if I would pick EdTech and education as my number one choice.
But Somehow, like, the the your life's calling, your life's work, will somehow keep calling you. It will keep Mhmm. Making that phone call, and it is up to you to pick up the phone and answer, you know, because it will always it will always try to guide you towards it. So I have a feeling that maybe, you know, education is a space that I'm meant to be. I never thought I would be here, you know, for sure.
But maybe, you know, I don't know. So so
for listeners who, who probably don't notice you have had, like you said, you've done a lot of things. You've been found in a lot of companies. We're talking about at least like 18 no co projects. We have one, a project that you spend all your savings on where you try to build with like a development, you know, company to put it out and you've you've you've you've you've also, been program director of 2 different places. Today, how did you, how are you been looking back and know like which phone calls to pick up?
Right. There's a lot of people calling you. There's a lot of signals saying you should do this. There's a lot of saying like, this is going to be really fun. K, but you should take a look at this.
This is going to be the next fun thing. How are you able to find your own barometer or rubric to be like, Oh, here's what I need to keep honing in. And here's what I mean using now to determine what I want to do for the next know, 5 years for the next century. Next decade, not century. Sorry.
Well, I mean yeah. I do think in Decades and sometimes centuries. No. Just kidding. I think, you know, it, if you look back, they look like I've done a bunch.
It always feels like a bigger number than in reality where I always felt like I was doing 2 or 3 things at once, and that's it. And I try to make sure that 2 or 3 things don't clash into each other. For example, right now, in the season where I am right now, I'm focused on the podcast, which is a very different experience. So I like to say, like, I'm the CEO of my podcast. Right?
And so I think about, how do you you know, there are all the stages of the podcast journey as I'm sure you've now known. Right? It's it's the how do you pitch the guest and how do you, you know, schedule time with them. And how do you prepare the questions? And so all these steps.
So that division or that media company just separate for me in my mind from, the fellowship, which is the educational experience. And those are separate from the SaaS products that, you know, I'm playing with right now and, I wanna build. And so at at any given one at any given time, I'm only doing 2 or 3 things, so I don't feel like I'm doing a lot. But when you look back, with the no code stuff and all these other things, it feels like I've done so much. So the the question about what do I how do I pick, I do actually have a criteria that I use, which is there's usually 3 steps of this, I think.
I forgot, but I've done this exercise, intentionally in January. When I had I was at when I was at the crossroads and I had to really make some strong some big decisions, I think there were 3 parts to it if I recall. 1 was, is this bringing me a lot of joy? Mhmm. And, you know, shout out to the title of this podcast.
Right? So joy of building. And so if if nothing else if nothing else, I want joy to be the factor that keeps me going. So that's number 1. And the 2nd question I ask myself is, does do I feel like this, has a compound effect?
This Does this have an inherent compound advantage where if I do this 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years, It just compounds. Right? Some things compound, some things don't compound. For example, that the newsletter I mean, sorry. The build the Be the Purple Cow stuff didn't compound.
So it was very clear because I was doing it the wrong way. But if you take the podcast, podcast compounds, it's because I would just keep doing the thing and it keep going, keep going, and keep going, And suddenly, it takes 1 or 2 big episodes to blow up or one that is that. Right? 1 there's, like, a upside effect where suddenly 1 or 2 big episodes can elevate completely whole game. Or somebody can listen to the 2021 episode I did with Gary v, which is 2 years ago, Right?
Which is a compound effect. It's still paying me dividends that somebody listened to that episode and then trusts me and then builds trust with me or DMs me and says, KP, can we work together? Right? So you should always think about the compound effect. Is is does does this lend itself naturally to a compounding thing?
Usually, as Naval says, code and media lend themselves. So if you build a project that's whatever. If it's low friction to keep it maintained, I think that's a great one. Right? If you have a project that keeps can be like a that's an asset to the Internet.
And if it's low maintenance, then no code or code doesn't matter. Code compounds and also, content compounds. Right? The beauty with content, another thing is what blows my mind is imagine if I did an episode with Arvind Kaul, And and that was, like, last year, let's say. That if if somebody if somebody checks out that episode, they still get value today.
And I didn't do any work today for that episode, number 1. Number 2 is 10,000 people could check it out, and I don't need to work hard. 10,000,000 people could check it out? I don't need to work hard today. You see what I mean?
Like, it's just it's so detached from my time and my presence that it's such a great asset to have flying around in the Internet. You know? So, anyway, so I think about that. Number 2 is Does it compound? Does it have a compound effect?
And number 3 is, do I genuinely believe that I'm driving value? And this is a tricky question because a lot of the times, imposter syndrome kicks in from KPN. Initially, you may feel like it's not driving a lot of value. You're not adding a lot of value, but you cannot you cannot rely on your own words. So I look for Other people's qualitative feedback.
Data is great if you have enough data, but sometimes you don't have enough data in in the early days. So I look for what people are saying about what I'm doing. You know? If I see the words like thank you. If I see the words like this was awesome, if I see the words like keep doing this, oh my god.
This was amazing. That's a good sign. I'm in the right direction. Right? Yeah.
And, like, we so one of my practices is that often, I go to our Jotform, which is our tool that I use inside in the fellowship, And I read through all of your NPS surveys. And especially, I read through what was the impact of the IPF on you, how did you feel this, etcetera, etcetera. And I've taken some printouts of those, and those words mean a lot to me because that's my motivation right now. That's my fuel. Because there's no enough data.
I don't have a 1000000 students do, like, draw charts and say, boom, here's the grand data. Right? There's no Yeah. We only have 45 people. So and half the people didn't complete the form, so I only have 25 Qualitative pieces.
So I I have to really rely on my, gut trusting that data call it sorry. Bad words, you know? Otherwise, I'll be running out of gas very quickly, and it's very easy to give up. Right? So I use the combination of joy, compound effect or compound impact.
The third one being, do I believe that I'm adding value?
Wow. Something that resonates deeply with me was well, this idea of you printing out the, the printout, like what people wrote in terms of the feedback and how much enjoy the Southern public fellowship. Was that, you know, when I started my coaching, I obviously also didn't have a lot of data. One thing I started doing was collecting video testimonials. And initially it was just purely for like, I I was thinking already like, oh, I can display my website like this.
It can look cool. But what became a bigger value that I never expected, which I once tweet about, which is that, there were days I would doubt myself. I only had like 2, 3 clients and, I would watch those videos. And I was like, woah, I, I did a really good job. Yeah.
Like he's genuinely happy. She's genuinely telling me how much I helped her. And that is, to me, that's bigger than maybe here getting. 200, 300 users on a, on a platform that I've done before. Right.
This like Hearing somebody say you've helped me, you changed me, you shaped me, was just such a satisfying feeling.
Yeah. And that's all you're gonna get. I think I'm slowly warming up to this reality that until you get to PMF, product market fit, which is an elusive thing that we're all chasing, you know, and it takes time. Like, it takes 5, 6 years to get there. So until you get there, all you can hold on to is this qualitative, you know, did it resonate?
Did it make impact? Did it create value kind of, you know, responses and authentic feedback from people, right, like social proof. But That's that's the only thing you're gonna get. I think the the challenge is our minds are looking at the mess of the path And trying to use that as justification that maybe what we're doing is not good enough. Maybe you were on the right and wrong path.
Maybe whatever. You know? And The funny thing is, it's kinda like the grass is greener thing. So when you try a new tactic or a new pivot, only the first 10 steps are green. The next 90 steps are filled with blood.
So you might as like, you know, so once you get in there and then you're like, 11th step and you're bleeding again, you're like, what? Why am I bleeding again? Like, yeah, buddy. This is entrepreneurship. Like, the game is filled to be messy.
You know? The game is, like, set up in a way that it's hard and messy hand, you know, like, sweaty, you know? The so there's really no it's kinda like if you and I were in a, marathon race or, I mean, some kind of a ultra whatever. They call these, like, crazy mud, you know, mud race or whatever. And then halfway in that race thinking, you know what?
Maybe I should have done this triathlon thing with a cycle bicycle. You know, maybe that would have been easier. Like, how? Like, after mile 95, like, that would kick your butt too. Right?
So it's Your that your mind is constantly looking for, an easy way out to to to justify, because it just never has you know, we've never been trained, to to persevere through something as hard as on hard. It's a self inflicted wound. You could anytime quit and go back to Google. So my brain always thinks like, I could anytime quit and get back go back to my normal job. Because I'm I'm being liable.
I know that. I can easily go get a job in Atlanta. So my brain's constantly hijacking The reality I'm trying to paint is if like, hey, by the way, why are you this is so hard. You know? Like, it just should have been easier by now.
And So I'm always battling that voice. You know? It's like what I said earlier. In the 2011, 2012 era, The biggest voice I was battling was, would I just be a passive spectator and never live my dream? And now that I'm living my dream, by all means, The biggest voice that I'm having to battle is, maybe you're on the wrong path.
Maybe there's a better way. Maybe there's a more optimized way. You know? Mhmm. In your why are you going through the messy path?
Right? And I know 10 years from now on a different podcast, hopefully yours, I would say, wow. How naive.
Yeah. You know, it was all worth it.
It was all worth it. So Yeah. Wow.
I, I love that because I wish more people can hear that. Well, one understand as entrepreneurs know that that feeling they're not alone with it because half the battle is that version of their voice and we all have our own versions of it. They sound differently. They also are a fusion of voices of people around us. Yeah.
Or peers or even our parents. Right. And I would say half the battle is, is dealing with that business. Right. Or talking to it.
Right. It's hard, man. I mean, I wonder I wish I wish I could tell you. I mean, this is something I was thinking because I had 16 calls this week with founders, And every founder had a version of this exact thing that I've talked told you. And Wow.
And I was trying to So it kinda became like therapy calls with me. Right? And I was trying to, like, sort of give them a reality that They they have the feeling that because I have distribution, I have brand, I have this in person brand or whatever, podcast, Twitter, newsletter, and they're like, What they're really asking in subtext is, is it easier for you, KP? Right? Because you have the thing that we are desperately seeking and we don't have it and it has to be easier.
I'm like, It's not easy. You know? I wish it was easier. Right? It's still hard.
You know? I think, like, 10 years ago, me now, I think I I'm a lot more. I have insanely high conviction and insanely high perseverance. I have a lot more like, I have very less self doubt now. I think that's the one thing I conquer because I don't ever, delude myself into thinking maybe I'm not a good fit.
No. I am a good fit, you know Mhmm. For whatever I choose to do. But still the market reality of, like, how do I, tweak the offering of what I have to the desires of the customers, Balancing the pricing models. Like, this this is the big game.
Right? Like and so in no matter like, I made a tweet yesterday that you could have ran, you know, 20 marathons before. But if you run the 21st marathon with me for together running this, you still have to run every mile. Like, it doesn't get shorter just because you ran 20. Right?
You still That's
so true. Yeah.
And the the medal is waiting for you at the finish line. So everybody's like, Where's my medal? I ran 4 miles. I'm like, no. No.
This is a marathon. They're not handing out medals. And it doesn't matter if you are the fastest person to reach the 100 meter dash or All these early sprints are doesn't matter. It's the messy middle that we need to persevere. Mhmm.
And then the real medal or the reward, whatever, is on the finish line. So, this is the story that I keep telling myself. It's like, KP, you're on the right track. People are paying you. They're putting their hard earned money into this.
They're paying you. The NPS is high. Look at the signs and the cues of what they wanna do more of, do more of that. But, buddy, like, it's not gonna get easier. Like, buckle up.
This is just how it is. Accept it. Yeah. Find peace in it. And one day you're gonna look back being proud of Johnny.
Yeah. I mean, it, it reminds me of a quote that from the book by Victor Franco that talks a lot about how if you can figure out the why. Yeah. You can deal with the help. Yes.
Right. And I hear you talk a lot about your why around the purpose. And I wanna zoom in on the the word value. Because when people think around the value, they may think a lot about, you know, a lot of like business sense, like, oh, I can solve a solution. Right?
Before because, I know you longer, I know for you, a value means so much bigger. It means from doing things from a place of service. Yeah. Right. And that's hard for people to comprehend, right?
In term, especially in the entrepreneur's journey. So what does that mean for you and how has that also been part of the why that made this just a little bit easier.
I think yeah. I first, fundamentally, my maxim is that I equate like, there's the sticky note somewhere. I have to find it. It says business equals service, And service equals joy. That's me.
And, I think it was Raveena Tagore who was a, famous Indian poet who wrote this that, something on the lines of, like, he was searching for joy in the world, and suddenly he stumbled into service. And he found joy, and he realized service is joy. Like, some version of this. It's not exactly this. And I fully resonate with it.
You know? Every time I was searching for happiness, I was searching for something like, joy. It always had a component of offering something, you know, selflessly to somebody with no thank you, no expectations, nothing. You know, no anticipation of reward. Just offering something because it's just the right thing to do.
It's just something that I wish somebody would do for me kinda thing. Right? And that has always left me with more happiness More joy. So I realized that the biggest game I'm gonna play for the next 50 years is gonna be business. Right?
Like, I'm gonna be like, Steve Jobs said something on the lines of, your work takes up 70, 80% of your day. For me, I'm a I'm I love my work, so definitely 70, 80% of my life is gonna be work. So I tried to hack that and say, instead of trying to do business in a one way and then nonprofit activities and all these other charitable things on the side for, like, 2% to 3% of my day, What if I build my foundation of my business life with service and and and kindness and value? That doesn't mean I don't charge people money. That doesn't mean, like, you you know, it's like a charity.
It means operating from the core principle of I want every customer to feel like they ripped me off, That's a good thing. Mhmm. Because they will tell their friends and say, you gotta go get to that KP thing. It's a crazy thing. You know?
Like, I want people to feel so indebted, you know, to whatever I do that here's a person. At every interaction, that person gave more than he took because the the business world is filled with takers. So to stand out Mhmm. To me, it's it's actually strategically very smart from an MBA point of view to be a giver. But Mhmm.
I'm not doing it from an MBA point of view, but even personally, it makes me feel amazingly satisfied going to bed thinking that today, I give more than I took from all my meetings, all my sessions, all my events and everything.
Yeah. And I can see it as, well, 1, I wanna first call out how, as someone who went through your building public fellowship, I also paid for it. Right? We're
twice. Actually you did too. You did too. Yes.
With the podcast fellowship as well. But absolutely everything you just said, I felt that. Right. And even as a, you know, as a payee, you know, there's a part of my rational voice like, Oh, am I gonna get my bang for the buck? Write.
Am I getting it valued? But I remember, I think I said to you, which was like initially I already got the return, which was how good I felt just being your sessions, feeling the giving that you're giving. We're not talking about the bullet points yet, you know, all the lessons or challenges, just those sessions, how I felt that was already felt that. I can imagine your end, you're giving so much and it feels so good. You're going to bed, smiling.
That also makes easier to just wake up and do it again. Yes. The next cohort, which is coming out a few few days. Yeah. Exactly.
Imagine that.
That is exactly it. You know, it's just the, the help. The intrinsic joy from from feeling like, hey. I don't really have I don't I'm not really working working. You know?
I'm just serving people, And I'm helping them. And only a few will resonate initially, right, and being okay with it, being humble enough to realize that Only a few will resonate, but the ones who did are the right ones, and I'm grateful for them. You remember how many times they give a thank you in the beginning in the afternoon and and I like it's The the slides always had a version of, like, thank you for taking a bet on me because I truly believe it. 10 years from today, it would be way easier to take a bet on me or the fellowship or whatever I built. Because 10 years from today, I would have that much of brand, that much of proof, that much of whatever, undeniable proof.
So now it's mostly trust. So you guys trusted me, you know, and so I take that very seriously. Mhmm. I take myself very lightly, but I take take responsibility very seriously. And so every session, all I thought about was I I remember Tal was saying, KP, your slides were, brilliant.
Like, every slide was just a banger. You know? And I said that's that's partly because I'm also tired of, like, fluffy slides that have no value. You know? I'm very impatient in terms of, like, give me the value, and partly because I genuinely want everybody who came to the fellowship or to listen to the podcast, whatever I do at this point of my life, I think I want everyone to feel that, yeah, KP just really, really, really gives and tries his hard hardest, in in putting love and and hard work into something.
You know? I still frankly, though, Andrew, I still think that, I could do more. That's the funny thing. Right? That's the thing.
Right? You never know when you have done, really well. That's why this fa this whatever I do, I'm gonna continue doing this, especially the fellowship and on the cohorts and everything because I get a chance to read. I get a chance to iterate on what's working so I can make it better and better and better.
I love that. And so grateful. I got the witness this, I would say Earl, pretty early on. Cause I do believe that you were gonna, you know, 3 is such it's gonna be such an, VIP. 3 is such a small number compared to the journey you're gonna have.
Yes. Well, I would like to always like to leave listeners with some something they can take away. And so, What is a a challenge that you could give out for a listener who is either an inspiring or even a entrepreneur, who's either thinking about it or is struggling with this journey.
So, a challenge as in a maybe a question to think about or or a call to action or what would be in what way?
Either. It could either be like a a something that they can take away or something they could try doing.
Yeah. The thing that comes to mind is, just offering a sense of it's gonna be okay to everybody who is listening. You may be aspiring founder today. One day, you'll be full time founder. You know, actually, I went through 3 stages, so I'll probably talk about those 3.
You may be an aspiring founder for a long time, like I was, and then you'll be a part time founder, like I was, and then now you'll be a full time founder, like I am. And knowing that, in every version of you, your real job is to keep moving forward and being graceful to yourself. Right? I wish the younger version of me, The the 2011 version had the wisdom that I have now, but you can't that's not how it works. Right?
Wisdom comes through failure. Wisdom comes through experience. And, you you just, you know, that's not how it works. So I I've always in in my daily journals or in my my meditation, I'm always giving grace and gratitude do my younger versions of me because if any one of them gave up, I would be here. They had seen so much shit in their life, So many hurdles, so many, obstacles, dead ends, visa issues, you know, like financial troubles, you know, so much pain that they're those versions went through for me to be on this pod and, like, rock it.
Right? So this version has to absolutely always give gratitude instead of thinking, man, I could have done this or I should have done this, you know. So I'm always giving grace, and so I wish the same for you all, you know, is to give your younger versions a lot of grace and lot of love and lot of gratitude because without like, there's a great quote that I once read that, if you want to know how powerful you are, remember that You survived every one of your worst days. Whatever you labeled as the worst day ever in the past, who survived it. That's why you are here.
So instead of thinking that, man, why do I always get keep running into worst days? In fact, feel like a victor where, damn, no no worse day could take me down. Right? The smallest shift in mindset. And so I always think about that.
I'm like, like, so much gratitude my to my past and and, you know, and just, you know, just I think if we all could be a little bit more graceful to each other, there will be a better place, I think, because we're we're putting too much pressure on each other, I think, subconsciously. You know? Nobody I know who is who is successful, who is super, you know, like, elite by any means is crushing it any every single day. I know them really well. I'm very close friends with some of them.
On a day to day, in the micro, if you look at look at what they're doing, it's all messy. It's all messy, and it's all squiggly, and it's nonlinear. It doesn't make sense. But if you zoom out and look at the macro, It makes sense. So, you know, hopefully, that can help you realize that if your life is going through a messy phase, That's okay.
You know, there's light at the end of the tunnel.
I absolutely love that. And KP, I can always count on you for shining your light and just make me feel so warm and bubbly inside. So, well, thank you so much for your time. I've had the, greatest pleasure to be able to kind of interview you on this podcast and I I've enjoyed every second of it. So thank you so much for joining today.
You too. And I loved it and I felt, I felt like the time just pass pass so quickly, which is always a great sign, you know, both as a host and a guest. So thank you so much, Andrew. Thanks for having me, and I'm super excited for the rest of these episodes and, like, your podcasting journey. You know?
It means a lot. We need I always say this. We need a lot of Authentic, you know, and and graceful voices in the podcasting way and game. You know, we don't we need yet another sports podcast that's talking about, you know, I don't know, Boston Red Sox or whatever. You know?
It's cool. Like, I'm I'm not saying we should not, but I'm we need a lot more people who are deep and thoughtful in the podcasting game. You know, that's partly why I do my thing. Mhmm. Same thing with entrepreneurship.
I I I'm always rooting for people like you because I'm like, we need more voices that are authentic in the arena, not on the sidelines. So wish you all the best and I'll, keep in touch.
Yeah. Thank you so much, KP.
Awesome.